If only the RNG wasn't such a cruel mistress. Save-scumming really *is* a requirement :/

And watching 5 of your soldiers die after you did everything right but were unlucky should never happen in a decent game imo.Yes, I know you can just order a french batch of soldiers. That's not the point.

Examples:An elite soldier should be able to shoot at an alien 5meters away with 100% accuracy, no excuses.A soldier hiding behind a SOLID WALL should be UNTOUCHABLE period.

Both of these examples ^ are an uncertainty in Xcom. I've had 6 misses in a row with a 50% chance to hit, followed by a CRIT (10% chance upon a hit) on a soldier behind HEAVY COVER (probably about 20-30% or less chance to be hit), killing the soldier instantly 100->0.

Were you savescumming between turns by any chance? Because the rng generates a big ol' string of numbers at the start of the mission and just uses them sequentially. Therefore, if you try the same shot 5 times by reloading, the outcome will always be the same. ames like fire emblem do this as well, if I remember right.

No. Not by turns. I make one main save and one Interim Save in case I have to leave the game for whatever reason. I don't do step-by step saves.

And the RNG for Fire Emblem isn't the same between games. Some of them have their random seeding "stepped" by turns, others by frame/action.

Libra:Loving the positive vibes. And the "Nigeria has withdrawn support" slide had me laughing for the rest of the video

Did anyone bother saving that country?

I generally try to keep Nigeria in the game so that I can get the All In bonus (which is really handy at the start of the game); and they always seem to last. Weirdly, it's Egypt that always gives me problems in Africa. Either they're being needy and are constantly asking for all of my resources and tech, or they're pulling out outright and screwing over my interception plans.

On Topic: I figured that Yahtzee would enjoy XCOM, it seems very much the style of game that would suit him.

The game is great.. and I don't even like strategy games, especially ones with messy resource management and base building. Just finally caved in to picking the game up yesterday and I'm finding myself enjoying it a lot. There's just something compelling and satisfying about how they've put everything together. As Yahtzee says, there is a synergy to the way your in base and on ground activities work.

EDIT: What I meant by that, is that he stated many times that he didn't liked strategy games and that he liked the Thief series, even saying something about a massive erection slaping everyone in a room, or something like that, but to my surprise, it turned out to be the other way around.

I want to play both, but I'm definitely leaning more towards Xcom due to it's replayability.

Just finished it. Only complaint I have is the final mission. The game gets pretty tough, but that was a joke. Way, way, way too easy. I could literally just rush into the last room, and even though I only had 3 guys left I cleared it in a few turns.

SupahGamuh:Yhatzee didn't liked Dish-on-a-red... and he did liked Eggs-com...

I don't know what to think...

Maybe that he doesn't have the same tastes in gaming as you do?

OT: I was leaning towards X-COM over Dishonored before, and everyone else on the internet gave them both 9/10, so I think this might be the only time I was ever even slightly influenced by Yahtzee's opinion. Except when he influenced me into learning of Painkiller, which was amazing and everyone should play it.

He didnt like the old game because of the interface??? how about any criticism worth of mention like, how much of the customization was lost in the new game and etc?? Is that really your best?

And now that you suddenly like Turn Based Strategy, how about we see you play Heroes 3 Of Might And Magic?? or how about the RTS+FPS+Management Sim hybrid know as Dungeon Keeper? You despice being the coward commander who directs the orders from the sky but you like being a man of action, here is a game where you can do both. How does it hold up?

And if this version off XCOM is too luck based for you then you will eat your hat when you play FTL: Faster Than Light.

Yay. Now all his blind dribbling fans can go buy it and this game can become successful in the eyes of the game industry and send a message of anti-FPS bullshit to the rest of the companies out there and hopefully even encourage them to finally cancel that other XCOM game they were making that was horrible. And maybe a remake of Syndicate that's actually a strategy game, that'd be cool.

That's the best part about this new XCOM too: the potential for stories. Every single person who has played the game has a story just like the one he told at the end of the video, and it's awesome.

Libra:Loving the positive vibes. And the "Nigeria has withdrawn support" slide had me laughing for the rest of the video

Did anyone bother saving that country?

I generally try to keep Nigeria in the game so that I can get the All In bonus (which is really handy at the start of the game); and they always seem to last. Weirdly, it's Egypt that always gives me problems in Africa. Either they're being needy and are constantly asking for all of my resources and tech, or they're pulling out outright and screwing over my interception plans.

On Topic: I figured that Yahtzee would enjoy XCOM, it seems very much the style of game that would suit him.

Had a similar issue when they were demanding three heavy lasers literally right before they were about to pull out. Thankfully they had nothing useful to offer so I just told them to go hug a cryssalid.

An elite soldier should be able to shoot at an alien 5meters away with 100% accuracy, no excuses.A soldier hiding behind a SOLID WALL should be UNTOUCHABLE period.

the cover in XCOM doesn't work like that

unless you use "hunker down" your soldier is not just hiding behind the cover, he's sticking his head out so he can see what's going on, and in that case, he got his face shot off.

I agree that an elite soldier should be able to hit a target 5m away, assuming there isn't some other circumstance. If they were behind cover, then maybe they ducked just before the shot was fired, or if the weapon is crap close in because it's too heavy to swing like that. But for the most part, yeah, there are some really stupid misses.

Oh God this review made me happy. Also, I'm glad I'm not the ONLY ONE that thought the original's interface was absolutely horrible. Seriously I bought the original's in a collection quite a while ago and I could not for the life of me get into them because of the damn near alien interface. I already got it though and I think I will make a Ban "Yahtzee" Croshaw. Now I wonder if I have a Brit in my roster already...

While I agree with Yahtzee that it's pretty silly to have a dozen slightly different American voices, 10 seconds of listening to their attempt at giving your head of science a German accent makes me a bit relieved that they didn't try different national accents for the troops.

And on normal, I found the Ironman mode that prevents safe scumming highly satisfying. It certainly gave me some of my best moments with that game knowing I had to salvage two team mates mind controled by aliens surrounded by heavy floaters and mutons. But then, I came prepared and made sure to train up more than 6 teammembers, so even if I loose one I still have some mid-level replacements.

Though it's bitten me on the ass when, during a mission inside an alien battleship, the game bugged out and decided I couldn't move through an open door after my robot tank had already gone through. I've found no way to fix this (explosives don't work on that particular wall), so that mission is fucked.

erttheking:...ok, didn't call that. Thought that he wasn't going to like it. Aw well, I really should give it another playthrough. I kinda lost patience with it and kept save scumming individual turns, but maybe I was going about it the wrong way.

It's mostly the curve, the original xcom doesn't ramp quite as fast or as inevitably as this does. I've played through the original more times than I've inhaled air and still find myself overwhelmed by the new game.

I like it, I want to love it, but it keeps killing me and refusing my advances.

It is the best "reboot" that I can think of though, so kudos to them for getting as close as possible in todays terribly shitty large publisher world :P. [Personal feelings, anyone reading this is allowed to love big budget games, I personally feel left out often these days. 60 dollars for boredom is a shame most times)

Edit: Also disliking the old UI is a bit odd, its a simple picture system. Literally a child could figure it out, I know from experience >.>

It's no more complicated than that block game where you try to fit them with the holes.

God I love this game, but no Ironman Yahtzee?! That's the only way to play! some of the most memorable moments so far has been when my team got wiped.

My very first terror mission I took a six man squad. It was the first time meeting Chrysallids so three of my men were infected right away and my other three guys ended up holed up in a building taking potshots at their zombified comrades and then trying to creep to the extraction zone while dodging the chrysallids. There was an ambush right at the extraction zone upon which one of my men (Ivan Drago) sacrificed himself with a grenade so the other two (Dutch and Thomas Anderson) could escape. I can't remember the last time I was so absorbed in a game it was intense!

My biggest bugbear with the game is the line of sight issue that I've seen crop up a few times. Sometimes a soldier could be right in front of an alien and still only get a 50% chance to hit (and then obviously miss) when I sat there thinking, I could have taken that shot myself and got the alien perfectly. Then other times characters can shoot through or around walls and still manage to hit, it kills immersion.

Hah, I actually used a similar analogy to describe the intuitiveness of the original X-Com interface, only I used a fighter jet instead of a submarine. But like with most things that aren't among the collective acceptable standard phrases to think about something, people just *look* at noticing such heresy that's neither a blind acceptance of the complexity nor a peacful resignation... And when they're done looking, they come out with another standard phrase to make it seem normal again to blindly accept such "complexity".

The one real complaint I have is that nations won't rejoin you again if you are doing well. It makes it pointless to keep playing after a couple of nations have left already, plus it's always possible to make a spectacular comeback. It would be great if countries leaving the project can get conquered and you can reconquer them. Might make the game more like Civilization though, which some don't want.